


Fallow

by madamebadger



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, F/F, Fancy Words Meme, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 07:56:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3373751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamebadger/pseuds/madamebadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's getting hard to ignore the dreams. Sera's always been one to move forward, not to dwell on things, but for once in her life she maybe has something that's worth dwelling on... and that scares the piss out of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fallow

**Author's Note:**

> The language in this is… well, it’s Sera POV, so it’s fairly crass, although nothing NSFW happens. I’d say neither "better" nor "worse" than in-game Sera dialogue as coarse/offensive language goes.

It’s getting hard to ignore the dreams.

Sera’s good at ignoring bad things. Growing up like she did you have to, ‘cause there’s too much bad and if you don’t put some of it clear out of your head you’ll drown in it. Some people do, drown in it and never come back up, or they try to forget by drowning themselves in something else, ale or worse. Sera learned well, though: fix the things that are right in front of you that you can fix (put food in your belly and a blanket on your back, if you can, and keep out of the way, and always keep your eyes open), put the rest away. _Especially_ the things where there is no fixing it, like dreams.

But the dreams are getting harder and harder to put away and forget about, even with Inky around to distract her, and _woof_ , Inky is distracting in all the best ways. Still the dreams seep in, seep in like swampy bilge into her boots, stinking and wrinkling and cold.

It doesn’t help that they’re back in the Fallow fucking Mire, which as far as Sera’s concerned is way too fancy a name for it. Piss Bog Full of Rotting Dead Things would be closer. And the greeny-gray and the rot and the smell of the dead keeps bringing the dreams back into her head, snatches when she doesn't want to think about it.

"This is _piss_ ,” she says, poking the fire with a stick. Fire never seems to burn proper here, not even when Dorian hits the damp wood with enough flame to choke a demon.

"You’re telling me," Varric says. "At least you can keep your head out of the water most of the time."

"Heh, guess that’s right," Sera says. She has noticed Varric edging along a slime-covered bit of rock when the rest of them had given up and started wading. She wouldn’t want that gunge in her face either. "You could get Inky to carry you," she adds, smirking.

Varric snorts. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before anyone carries me anywhere,” he says.

Normally Sera’d agree with him—she hates when people treat her like some little fragile elfy thing, the ones who act like she’s something cute to put on the shelf are almost as bad as the ones who spit at her—but she’s got to admit, if Inky offered to carry her she’d say yes fast as you can blink. Piggybacking on those wide shoulders, a big hand on her thigh to keep her steady… yeah. Yeah, she’d go along with that, no problem. Isn’t like Inky hasn’t picked her up before, after all.

Sera’s always liked ‘em hale and hearty: big tall human women with arm muscles that could crack iron bands (she and Cassandra may annoy the piss out of each other but fuckin’ hell, Seeker’s fun to watch at her morning exercises), curvy dwarf women with all their strength coiled up tight like unexploded mines. (Her friends in Denerim used to make fun of her because she’d had a thing for this round red-cheeked barwoman, rolling hips and tits you could balance a pint on and thick arms that looked soft but you just knew she could carry a keg all by herself or knock out a Templar with one punch. They just had no taste, though, ‘cause Sera knows sexy and that, that’s sexy.)

But she’d never met a qunari woman before Inky, and Inky’s so fucking _fit_ she runs out of words (and whatever Lady Viv Bitchface says about ‘a vocabulary as shallow as a puddle, darling,’ Sera’s got plenty of words, the street’s full and overflowing of words, more words even than the nobles have, they’re just not words Vivvy will admit to knowing herself). She’s reduced just to noises: woof, phwoar, guh, nnngh, like that, stuttery noises and a big stupid grin ‘cause there’s no way you can put in words exactly how sexy Inky is, seven feet of solid muscle—solid except the delicious roundness of her tits and her arse. Especially when she’s roaring and swinging that big hammer of hers, sweat making her iron-metal-colored skin even shinier, her eyes on fire.

Truth is, this may be a piss bog full of plague and rotting dead, but Sera’d follow Inky anywhere. She’d follow Inky to worse places, though that’s kind of hard to imagine right now.

And when she thinks about the dreams—when she can’t ignore the dreams because they crawl up into her mind dragging slime trails behind them like slugs—that’s what scares her. She dreams about dragon fire and rot and green and demons and everything in those dreams makes her want to run away but she knows she won’t, wouldn’t.

(In her gut she knows it’s not even because Inky’s sexy or because she’s fun to flirt with or even because the sex is good. There’s something else to it, something that scares her almost as much as the dreams, so she skirts around it as carefully as Varric edging around one of the stink bogs.)

When Inky and Dorian are done walking the bounds of their makeshift camp (Dorian setting wards and Inky probably just snarling at the wildlife so it’ll know to stay clear), they all go to bed. It’s early, but it’s not like there’s much to fucking _do_ in the marsh, no game worth eating and no plants worth collecting (not that Sera knows from plants, but the others do) and nothing pretty worth exploring. She doesn’t know why Inky brought them back to this pisshole—only really she does, there’s been rumors of a rift and Inky’s obsessive about those. Inky may not be a snotty noble shit but she’s got a stick up her arse about duty and all that, and Sera is almost willing to admit that that’s part of what she—likes, likes about her.

Damn it.

Anyway, they go to bed, Dorian and Varric in one tent and Inky and Sera in the other, and that’s how the split would be even if Inky and Sera weren’t a thing, so it isn’t super obvious. But Sera’s pretty sure Varric and Dorian already know.

Sera’s got nothing against messing around on the road, but not in the Mire, not when they’ve been trudging through muck and worse all day and they have to save their good water for drinking. (Last trip their bedrolls had had to be burned by the time they were done, they were so fouled with ground-in stink.) But still she rolls over against Inky’s side, feeling warmth through her thin undershirt, feeling the burning hearthfire warmth of Inky’s body now that she’s taken off all those layers and layers of armor. Inky’s hand settles on her shoulder, big and warm. (Inky can hold both of her wrists in one hand. Sera’s not ashamed to admit how much she likes that.)

"You haven’t been sleeping well," she says, almost a question.

Sera looks up at her. Dark-metal skin that almost looks like armor even when she’s naked, that shocking white hair that she always keeps braided on the road, silver horns that sweep straight back, golden eyes. She looks like a treasury walking around on two feet. Sera always feels like she’s pulled off the heist of a lifetime.

She doesn’t want to think about the dreams, about sleep. “You been watching me sleep, Inky?” she says, instead. “That’s creepy.”

Inky rolls her eyes, like she does, and that makes Sera laugh. “Seriously, Sera. I know you aren’t sleeping well. Is something wrong?” Her mouth twitches. “I don’t snore, do I?”

_I spend every night watching you die,_ Sera thinks. _Every_ night _, Inky, do you know what that’s like? Torn apart by demons or burned to death by dragons or sometimes a rift just opens wide and swallows you up, gulp and gone, do you know what that’s_ like? _And I’m always there and I’m always watching and I can never do anything but scream and scream and—and run at the demon or the rift or the dragon and if I can’t save you then it can eat me too—_

"You don’t snore," she says, "but you think too hard. Nobody sleeps good in a place like this, yeah? Full of bugs and leeches. I’ll be fine when we get back."

Inky looks like she isn’t quite buying what Sera’s selling, but she doesn’t push, and that’s also part of what Sera likes about her. “All right,” she says, finally. “Try to get some sleep tonight, though, all right? We need to be sharp in the morning.”

"Will do, gracious ladybits," Sera says, more lightly than she feels. Inky’s arm settles over her waist, a warm comforting weight, but still Sera lies awake long past when Inky’s breath has settled into its deep sleep rhythm.

She doesn’t believe in elfy-elf bullshit, doesn’t believe in whatever Solas is always wittering on about or the crap that elves are somehow more magical in their bones than everyone else. She’s Sera and she’s earthy as dirt, no magic and no Fade shit and none of that. But there’s a part of her that keeps turning her dreams over and over, like, what if they’re not _just_ dreams? What if there’s something true in them? What if what if what if.

She holds Inky tight, two of Sera’s small hands to curve around one of Inky’s, and fights sleep as long as she can.


End file.
